(Jeff Abbott is a regular contributor at The Pen Addict. You can find more from Jeff online at Draft Evolution and Twitter.)
The Hi Mojimoji Tagged Life Gear memo pads (or Tagged memo pads for short) is a unique and cute memo pad that is well-suited to short jots and tearing out pages for one-off uses, but it has some limitations. Still, the aesthetic is spot on and makes me like the notebook despite its paper quality.
Let’s start with the specifications for the notebook I have on hand, which is the “small” version. It features a unique shape reminiscent of a retail tag, complete with a grommeted hole in the upper left-hand corner of the book. There are 100 sheets in this pad, and each one is perforated for easy removal. The curved sides of the notebook give it a unique flair, but also make it easier to handle.
One of the major features this notebook touts is the water-resistant nature of the paper, which fits nicely with the water/ocean theme that this collection of notebooks display on their covers. There are several covers to choose from, including Anchor (featured in this review), Kingfisher, Lifesaving Float, Rudder, Tyrolean Hat, and Mt. Everest. All styles are available in a large or small size, but they all contain 5mm graph paper inside.
The “small” notebooks are about 2.6 x 4.4 inches, while the “large” notebooks are about 3 x 5 inches. This isn’t a huge difference, and the price is only a dollar apart as well.
On the outside, these notebooks are definitely an eye-catcher. They use interesting colors and high-quality symbols for each theme. The uniform design makes it tempting to collect all six styles, but you have to be comfortable with the paper before committing to that many notebooks.
The paper is “water-resistant,” which always comes with trade-offs. To make paper water-resistant requires a special coating. This coating usually causes certain inks to act much differently than usual — namely, fountain pen and some gel inks.
In general, traditional ballpoint and gel inks won’t have a problem with this kind of paper — pencil is also a great pairing — but don’t count on using your favorite fountain pens or rollerballs with this paper. It bleeds like crazy and shows through to the back side very clearly. The price of water-resistance!
Outside of the expected limitations caused by the water-resistant coating on the paper, it’s a handy little notepad. The graph is the perfect size, the quality is consistent, and it works well with most pens/pencils (as long as they’re not water-based inks).
I’ve had a couple of issues with this notebook that make me pause. One of them is that tearing sheets out of the pad is incredibly difficult/problematic. 100% of the sheets I’ve pulled out have either ripped down into the writing area or pulled additional paper from the binding. None of the sheets have torn out cleanly along the perforations. The purpose of this memo book feels like it’s meant to shed pages rather than be a permanent store of old notes. That being the case, I would expect a better tearing experience. I’m really anxious now about tearing the page when removing a sheet, which shouldn’t be the case.
For the price, you can definitely pick up a 3-pack of better made notebooks. $10 is a standard price for pocket notebooks and memo pads, but these aren’t top performers in my experience. If you dig the aesthetic, though, the Tagged memo books are a good water-resistant memo book.
(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)
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